Media can't resist Haagen-Dazs and honey bees

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A story distributed by UC Davis news service and posted on the ANR news Web site about a $100,000 gift from Haagen-Dazs to study colony collaspe disorder of honey bees was picked up widely by the news media.

Associated Press reporter Julianna Barbassa included information about the gift and an effort by personal products maker Bert's Bees to raise awareness about the threat to honey bees in her story, which moved on the wire service early this morning.

The Haagen-Dazs gift to UC Davis is aimed at averting a crisis for the ice cream maker, which uses a variety of berries, fruits and nuts in its products that depend on bees for pollination. According to the AP article, Haagen-Dazs pours a million pounds of almonds alone into its products.

The news release, written by Kathy Keatley Garvey of the UC Davis entomology department, says that a third of the U.S. food supply depends on bee pollination, but bees are vanishing in massive numbers

UC Davis is home to one of the oldest bee research facilities in the country, the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. The Haagen-Dazs gift will aid research into sustainable pollination and colony collapse disorder, and will support a postdoctoral researcher.

The story was picked up by, among others,